The Bible Under Fire

For more than three hundred years, the King James Version of the Bible had been dominant. Then, in 1952, a Revised Standard Version (RSV) was published to a firestorm of controversy. Some dubbed it the “Red Bible” and called it a Communist plot to undermine American society. At the same time, the RSV broke sales records. This film tells the story of the RSV against the backdrop of American history, both secular and sacred. It was the first to incorporate the discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the first distinctly American Bible to be a success and the first to be successfully promoted by an advertising agency.